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Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline

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JasonVoorhees525 said:
Which will be the difference between the collapse of the USSR and the collapse of the FBU. The collapse of the Soviet Union was a counter-revolution, through and through. The collapse of the FBU will be an actual revolution.
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Which is kind of the thing.

Revolutions are extremely rare and tend to only happen within a state that has been catastrophically destabilized in some fashion. The French Revolution (as we know it) would not have happened without the Seven Years' War, American Revolutionary War, and internal reactionary resistance to reform combined; the Haitian Revolution would not have happened without the French Revolution and ensuing continental European wars; the Russian Revolution would not have happened without World War I, and Red October almost certainly would not have happened without Lenin; the Chinese Revolution was only possible because of two decades of chaos and outright foreign invasion.

To overcome the repressive apparatus of state, it tends to require either the crippling or defection of that apparatus in one way or another. The soldiers have to defect; or the rickety, rotten apparatus has to be incapable of overcoming resistance; or the local elite have to actively collaborate in overthrowing the old order (see: the United States - this option tends to preclude a groundbreaking social revolution).
 
Ironically that post I think answers my question about Atomic Bombs: Post WWII weaponry correct? Because Germany doesn't have an ability to build them and I don't think America or Russia want to.

Does a (at least the first steps) of an Operation Overlord happen here though? Because while America has no desire to do that type of war crime now, they probably have the Soviets surrender conditions.

And my posts were never about ITTL FBU having a colonial empire, just their ability to wage a WWII level campaign while still maintaining it or indeed a willingness too.
 
WokeRonin said:
Does a (at least the first steps) of an Operation Overlord happen here though? Because while America has no desire to do that type of war crime now, they probably have the Soviets surrender conditions.
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Do you mean Downfall?

And yeah the ComIntern/VOSPAC is very reluctant to do any kind of strategic bombing, let alone nuclear.
Tactical though....
 
WokeRonin said:
Ironically that post I think answers my question about Atomic Bombs: Post WWII weaponry correct? Because Germany doesn't have an ability to build them and I don't think America or Russia want to.

Does a (at least the first steps) of an Operation Overlord happen here though? Because while America has no desire to do that type of war crime now, they probably have the Soviets surrender conditions.

And my posts were never about ITTL FBU having a colonial empire, just their ability to wage a WWII level campaign while still maintaining it or indeed a willingness too.
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The UASR/USSR will have the first atom bomb ITTL, but the important thing is the fact that the FBU is only a few months away from creating their own and they have the resource capacity to create and more and more of it in a way that the UASR/USSR do not have throughout the early Cold War era.

The Western Front is largely in the purview of the FBU/Commonwealth and they can actually do their own thing there without Americans around because of the initial modernizations that started occurring in the 30s within the British Empire, the Free French being more numerous ITTL and the fact that the Labour-SFIO government managed to rationalize the British economy and war production more than what Churchill has done IOTL; allowing more West Africans, Canadians, Australians and Indians to fill out the missing Americans.

Also another thing; the Americans also started providing resource and in-kind Lend-Lease type assistance to the FBU throughout the war, without the strings attached that ultimately became a Trojan horse for the US to use to hasten the decline of the British Empire IOTL. There is none of that ITTL.

I am not completely sure if there is going to be a Normandy landing though. We'll see about that.
 
Yeah, iirc the plan is that part of the reason that the UASR goes through an "Arduous March" period of austerity in the first ten or so years after the war is because the industrial ability and resources of the UASR are being leveraged to basically rebuild every nation that saw any kind of fighting.

Blue or Red

And with South America being a major theater and both Europe and China being considerably more aggressive fronts than OTL... woof.

It also shows that R!TLs Cold War is somewhat more of an accident of history than OTLs
 
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I'm rather tired of this cycle repeating so I'm going to ask you all to stop on a permanent basis because this thread has this dreadful habit of going on circuitous tangents that are never genuinely resolved by their end that have nothing to do with the last update. So I'm going to ask politely that you refrain from doing so in the future.

The Cold War is off-topic until World War two is done, full-stop. Cease discussing it immediately.

Do not contest or argue this with me.
 
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Yeah, I agree.

Let's get back to the spirit of the last update, then, to restore balance in the Force
(which still has some Cold War stuff in it so I don't know to you all but Cold War stuff never become off-topic here ever. Did it ever?)




Bordiga's wartime adventures, I can't wait... (maybe to be portrayed in film by Devito ITTL in the future)
 
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JasonVoorhees525 said:
Which will be the difference between the collapse of the USSR and the collapse of the FBU. The collapse of the Soviet Union was a counter-revolution, through and through. The collapse of the FBU will be an actual revolution.
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although arguably the counterrevolution happened pretty much as soon as Stalin seized power, considering how his rule was even more in violation of the principle of social revolution than Lenin, given the bloody purges, forced resettlement, mistreatment of the common worker, the Holodomor and later persecution of Jews IRL and so on and so forth.
 
Really wondering what MMA (Martial Arts in general) and Pro Wrestling look like in this timeline
 
Oh yeah, I can see the NWA and terrortory system in general existing as worker's collectives and alliance instead; the Monday Night Wars being between a television/cable collective versus the traditional system. Japan is still going to be suffering a massive national humiliation with their defeat with wrestling not only still becoming a massive cultural phenomenon and maybe a 'healthy' way to vent (up to and maybe even more of the insane celebrity marriages that happened), and maybe being despised and mocked as a 'Communist' sport in the Enete, after all it's rigged and the Commies are too dumb to see that!!!.

MMA is a bit harder and way off the rails because of how much one of the areas where the Rich and Poor/Working class interact, and the middle class is generally left out. The Japanese introduced Jiu-Jitsu to the Gracies by this point for example and they've had the exhibition bouts that are going to make help Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, because once the political changes occur I highly doubt the wealthy plantation family's contribution/variant is going to be welcomed anymore, let alone given their feuds with Vale Tudo schools and stuff. But also China and the failure of Kung-Fu to compete is fraught now, so it's interesting to consider if that gets worse or better.
 
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WokeRonin said:
Oh yeah, I can see the NWA and terrortory system in general existing as worker's collectives and alliance instead; the Monday Night Wars being between a television/cable collective versus the traditional system. Japan is still going to be suffering a massive national humiliation with their defeat with wrestling not only still becoming a massive cultural phenomenon and maybe a 'healthy' way to vent (up to and maybe even more of the insane celebrity marriages that happened), and maybe being despised and mocked as a 'Communist' sport in the Enete, after all it's rigged and the Commies are too dumb to see that!!!.

MMA is a bit harder and way off the rails because of how much one of the areas where the Rich and Poor/Working class interact, and the middle class is generally left out. The Japanese introduced Jiu-Jitsu to the Gracies by this point for example and they've had the exhibition bouts that are going to make help Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, because once the political changes occur I highly doubt the wealthy plantation family's contribution/variant is going to be welcomed anymore, let alone given their feuds with Vale Tudo schools and stuff. But also China and the failure of Kung-Fu to compete is fraught now, so it's interesting to consider if that gets worse or better.
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Honestly for MMA I think one of the most complicated things is figuring out how to navigate the exploitation in MMA (of all the fighters, but especially the average fighter rather than the elite showstopper) and the dangers to the fighters themselves. The former it is easy to imagine a solution to if you move beyond the capitalist framework. The latter is just kinda inherent to it: MMA is really, really dangerous and punishing to participate in in a way comparable to Football but OTL at least with less player power to contest these unsafe aspects.
 
Yeah that is the thing, I don't see the Reds! version of the UFC every airing that episode where a fighter has to lose twenty pounds in a day in order to qualify for his weigh in for example. Professional fighting is huge though, especially with the lower classes, so some form of it has to exist. It's just...hard to figure out.

Wrestling is easier, with things like the steroid trials and parental group anger not being as prominent, but things like Chris Benoit going to be a thousand times bigger than ever were.
 
King Washington said:
A Day in July: An Early 20th Century Timeline has a pretty well thought out MonCom Japan. Divergent point is Lenin and Stalin being killed during the July Days. Among the other butterflies is a very different Soviet Russia and socialist and communist movements veering off into weird directions without the marxist-leninist orthodoxy.
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that is a good timeline, but I meant more in the sense of "what kind of brain fever does Marx need to suffer/what Faustian pact do Lenin and/or Stalin make that sees Monarcho-Communism as a mainstream, albeit degenerated, school of thought?" Though

probably a matter for a different thread though
 
king of hybrids said:
that is a good timeline, but I meant more in the sense of "what kind of brain fever does Marx need to suffer/what Faustian pact do Lenin and/or Stalin make that sees Monarcho-Communism as a mainstream, albeit degenerated, school of thought?" Though

probably a matter for a different thread though
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I imagine a situation that results in the monarch supporting the worker unions against capitalists and corporations in the same way earlier monarchs use the power of the middle class free folk from minimizing the power of the nobility.
 
Yama951 said:
I imagine a situation that results in the monarch supporting the worker unions against capitalists and corporations in the same way earlier monarchs use the power of the middle class free folk from minimizing the power of the nobility.
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It's not the weirdest situation if someone goes by 'enemy of my enemy' logic.

A monarch sees their own personal power deteriorating, being lost to bourgeoisie political and economic institutions century by century, and then decade by decade.

But what's this? There are other people who are opposed to many of those same institutions that you are, even if it's for very different reasons. It wouldn't be that weird if - in one or two historical instances - an alliance was built around that for convenience's sake.
 
Yama951 said:
I imagine a situation that results in the monarch supporting the worker unions against capitalists and corporations in the same way earlier monarchs use the power of the middle class free folk from minimizing the power of the nobility.
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Tehshudge said:
It's not the weirdest situation if someone goes by 'enemy of my enemy' logic.

A monarch sees their own personal power deteriorating, being lost to bourgeoisie political and economic institutions century by century, and then decade by decade.

But what's this? There are other people who are opposed to many of those same institutions that you are, even if it's for very different reasons. It wouldn't be that weird if - in one or two historical instances - an alliance was built around that for convenience's sake.
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I suppose the question is how A) to keep such an alliance of convenience going long enough to become an accepted operating model (not wholly replace obviously) and B) Where you get the point of divergence?

Strictly from pop-culture understanding:
1) Chambourd kicks the bucket early and the Orleans manage a tenuous restoration dependent on Philippe VII courting the more pragmatic elements of the unions and socialist parties in alliance against the bourgeoisie would be Republicans?
2) Pedro II doesn't lose the will to fight for his throne and somehow mobilises the people against the coup?
3) the dispute between Wilhelm II and Bismarck over trying to suppress strikes snowballs?
4) the planned coup against Nicholas II by the Vladimirovichs/Empress Dowager occurs and Dagmar enters into a Faustian pact to keep her grandchildren's thrones/heads intact?

each more unlikely than the other

in the context of the timeline I would assume any vaguely monarchist party outside the FBU (and probably a few within it) would be of a nationalist/monarcho-communist bent if only as a figleaf 'as a symbol of the nation' etc etc
 
Napoleon III sold himself as a socialist monarch. Many workers bought it - most socialists did not.
 
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